Laser Peg’s newest toy lets you construct your favorite creepy crawly from LED lights Adding a “World of Bugs” to their repertoire of lighted construction sets, Laser Pegs continues to entice children with their LED-powered educational toys. With one peg grounded to a power source (either batteries or an AC/DC power adapter), kids seven years and up can create a host of insects using the kit’s supply of low voltage connectors. While kids are encouraged to use their imagination, the “World of Bugs” kit comes with a set of “factoids” for building accurate renditions. An award winning toy company, Laser Pegs teaches important lessons on electric currents and construction for a cognitive learning experience that will spawn the next generation of D.I.Y. developers. ” World of Bugs ” will sell for $60 beginning May 2011 from Laser Pegs , where you can find a wide assortment of other models and kits.
Resurrected dreams in emerging artist Jason Bard Yarmosky’s portraits Rife with the painful vulnerability of reclaimed innocence, Jason Bard Yarmosky ‘s painting series ” Elder Kinder ” reflects the parallel behaviors of growing up and growing old. Exhibiting at his first solo show (which opens this Friday at Brooklyn’s Like The Spice gallery), the works depict a cast of characters portrayed both in bold paintings and equally intriguing but more softhearted drawings. No matter the medium, meeting the direct stare of “Ballerina” or “Cowboy” is looking face to face with the raw sincerity of the subjects. Yarmosky explains in detail, “Elder Kinder juxtaposes the young and old to push the limits of social norms and freedom of expression. As a child you learn to walk, but later in life you learn to un-walk—the raw freedom that is so much a part of youth gives way to borders and boundaries placed on adult behavior. But the dreams of the young, often sublimated by the years, never really disappear.” Echoing the heroic themes of his earlier work , the models—Yarmosky’s Brooklyn grandparents—wrest their purest form of self from a lifetime of adult demands and responsibilities. His deft rendering of their worn faces is outdone only by their poignantly complex expressions. Yarmosky’s work was shown this year at Aqua Art Fair in Miami, as well as Scope Art Fair —both concurrent with Art Basel . “Elder Kinder” opens at Like The Spice Gallery in 11 February 2011 and runs through 7 March 2011.
Match beats with a limited-edition watch designed by a DJ Crispin Jones, London-based designer of conceptual watches, is known for his inventive ways of breaking down time into increments slightly more clever than minutes. Peddled under the label Mr Jones Watches , each timepiece asks its wearer to reconsider how we count time with such creative visualizations as 12 colored circles or seconds marked by “yes” and “no” (dubbed “The Decider”). For his Master of Time series, Jones asked five people who “have an interesting relationship to time” to collaborate with him as a new challenge. The resulting professionals—Iain Sinclair (author), Graeme Obree (cyclist), William Andrews (comedian), Brian Catling (artist) and Tom Middleton (DJ)—helped Jones create distinct watches that are “true collaborations.” Intermittently launching each design, the fourth and latest model in the series is Middleton’s tribute to the late-night DJ. Tasked with the essential duty of knowing each track’s beats per minute, Middleton designed the watch with a 15-second graphic animation that helps figure the BPM by simply counting the quarter note beats for the duration of the animation, and then multiplying the result by four. (Catch it in action below.) Jones told us that “introducing another person into the mix seemed a pretty infallible way of throwing a spanner in the works.” Pushing both himself and his collaborators out of their comfort zones, Jones declined from giving anyone “any guidelines about what their role would be,” because with a little ambiguity and not so many preconceptions “you get much more interesting results.” A limited edition of 100, the BPM watch comes in packaging created by Welsh pattern designer Hannah Davies and signed by both Middleton and Jones. The BPM, along with three other models in the Master of Time collection, sell online for
TOKYO (Reuters) – Nissan Motor Co said on Thursday it would recall 2.14 million March/Micra, Cube and about a dozen other models in its third-biggest recall, to fix a faulty ignition relay that could cause engine problems.
Shwood launches its extra-durable wooden aviators with a month-long giveaway From watches to sunglasses , fashion accessories crafted from wood are at an all-time high. Pioneers in the movement, Portland-based Shwood just introduced their latest edition, the Ashland , which improves on the durability of other models. Paying tribute to the classic utilitarian design of aviator glasses, the Ashland sets mirrored (below, left) or polarized (below, right) lenses within chunky East Indian Rosewood frames. The new design boasts a 100% increase in strength, resulting in even longer-lasting glasses. And to protect these gems, Shwood came up with an attractive hard case to house them. Constructed from a mix of Walnut and European Maple, the wooden case features a two-piece slider design to keep frames secure as well as easily accessible. To celebrate the release of the Ashland, Shwood is giving away one pair of the new style each Thursday during the month of October, 2010. To enter, simply visit the official Shwood fan page on Facebook . The Ashland sells online from Shwood for $145.
CH exclusive: The making of Kanye West’s newest music video “Power” with its artist/director Kanye West has been kicking up controversy right and left recently—showing up at both the Facebook and Twitter HQs, turning his teeth to diamonds and engaging the public with his crude and prolific Tweets . After noticing Marco Brambilla ‘s “Civilization” video installation in the elevators at The Standard New York Hotel in 2009, Kanye not only wrote about it on his blog , he commissioned the experimental filmmaker to collaborate on the video for “Power,” his new single. We’re premiering the behind-the-scenes video with the artist created by The 88 (above) and directed by Jenna Elizabeth, which starts by introducing “Civilization” and then shows how “Power” was made. We’ve also got an exclusive interview with Brambilla below. Cool Hunting: What is the concept and how did it come about? Marco Brambilla: To me “Power” was about a symbol, an icon of power about to fall, like an emperor about to fall. That’s when I thought I’d like to do a sort of moving portrait, a video portrait of Kanye as an authority figure in a moment when everything is about to collapse. I wanted to make it really sensual and use a lot of baroque imagery that I had used in “Civilization” and create this kind of decadent imagery around him and have all the decadence and sexuality and excess conspire against him. By the end of the video there’s a change in his position. So his position is compromised at the end of the video. CH: Are you interested in doing more collaborations in the future? MB: Kanye is more connected to the art world than other artists, so I thought this would be an interesting opportunity to work with someone who really understands how far you can push things and how experimental you can be. A lot of people will tell you they want to do something experimental but it becomes commercial. I thought Kanye would let me be true to my vision. I’ve never done a music video and one of the first things I said to Kanye was that I’m not interested in making a music video, but if we want to work on something that’s experimental, I can definitely do that because I really connected to that song. CH: Is it strange that a celebrity would depict their fall from power? MB: I think he’s a true artist—he doesn’t react to what people think of him. He’s aware, but he’s not the type of person who’s going to react to things in a way that is better for marketing. He wants to push the limits. I think using part of his public image as part of the way of illustrating his new album will resonate. CH: What was the production process like? Once we locked in on that concept it was pretty fast; essentially a three-four week process. The post production was pretty intense because there’s about 22 layers of video in the piece and each piece has to be choreographed—it’s almost like a very complicated matrix. The shoot itself was shot in extreme slow motion on a Phantom camera. The characters come to life, but they’re moving in a very stylized way. I knew exactly what I was going to shoot the day we went on stage. I actually shot images of the models at the casting and then I put the models together in Photoshop, so we had it pretty well figured out. CH: Are video collages your signature now? MB: One of the reasons I took this project is because conceptually it made sense to explore celebrity, sexuality, self-consciousness, self-destruction. This idea of being in the center of the universe becomes a little intimidating to people. I’ve explored it in my work before. Regardless of whether I do a video work based on sampling or based on collage, those themes come through in my work. Marco Brambilla and the Christopher Grimes Gallery are currently working on a show called “Evolution” that will open in 2011 at the Santa Monica Museum of Art .
